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<br />2.4 Flood Protection Measures <br /> <br />Flood protection measures in Las Animas County have <br />primarily been centered in and near Trinidad, Colorado. <br />Following the destructive September 1904 flood, <br />the City of Trinidad and concerned railroad companies <br />cooperated in a project involving channel straightening <br />and construction of concrete retaining walls along <br />the Purgatoire River through the city's more congested <br />urban area. In 1936 and 1938, the Works Progress <br />Administration did additional bank protection work, <br />including repairs to sections that had suffered damage. <br />The Pinon Canyon Dam, completed in 1954 by the U. S. <br />Army Corps of Engineers, protects a highly developed <br />area of approximately 40 acres in the northwestern <br />and central sections of the city from floods originating <br />in the precipitous pinon Canyon. This earth-fill <br />detention dam will detain all flood discharges up <br />to and including the SOD-year flood, and the ungated <br />outlet will drain the reservoir within a reasonable <br />time. Discharge from the ungated outlet will not <br />appreciably affect floods from the uncontrolled area <br />below the dam. <br /> <br />The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, Trinidad Lake Project, <br />located on the Purgatoire River approximately 4 miles <br />southeast of Trinidad, will provide a high degree <br />of flood protection to Trinidad. When completed in <br />the fall of 1976, the 200-foot high earth-fill dam <br />will retain all floods, up to and including the SOD-year <br />flood originating above the dam. Potentially damaging <br />flows will be regulated as necessary to limit downstream <br />flows to non-damaging rates. Water stored in the <br />114,500 acre-foot flood control pool will be released <br />at the maximum non-damaging rate. <br /> <br />The Soil Conservation service constructed dams on <br />Carbon and Fishers Peak Arroyos to prevent recurrent <br />damages to the watershed and the City of Trinidad. <br />The structures are of earth construction with ungated <br />spillways that provide regulation of storms with a <br />recurrence interval greater than 100 years. An <br />earth-fill dike and unlined vegetative channel approxi- <br />mately 2000 feet in length diverts a small tributary <br />of Fishers Peak Arroyo into the Fishers Peak Arroyo <br />flood retarding structure. <br /> <br />17 <br />